The Synthesis of Synthesis- The Hammond Novachord

[@PimpinBassie2]

Unfortunately some people treat the existing Novachords as museum pieces. Phil Cirocco did a beautiful restauration of one.

[@Wayne_Robinson]

I only recently learned about the Novachord protosynth and this video's the best explanation yet I ran across for explaining the design principles. Electronic frequency division and multiplication by wavefolding also figure into the Hammond tone wheel organ synthesis mechanism. DSP took over all the EE glory and now we can do amazing synthesis on a laptop!

[@lundsweden]

The Novachord was a polyphonic electronic instrument that in 1939! It may not have been a "proper" synthesizer by today's standards, it had two formant filters instead of the more common Low Pass Filter (with resonance control) we see in most synths today. But it did have a primitive envelope, that is control over the volume of the sound- a synth staple today. The divide down tech was also used in 1960/70s transistor organs such as those used by The Doors. The first poly synths in the 70s also used divide down technology, as did "string machines" popular back then like the Solina String Ensemble and many other similar keyboards. The Polymoog polyphonic synth also used this tech, but it quickly feel it of favor once you had "proper" polysynths, such as the Yamaha CS 40/50/60/80 series (1975-1978), Sequential Prophet 5 (1978), Roland Jupiter 8 (1981).

[@MrShiffles]

No disrespect to Moog and Buchla, but this was synthesized sound done beautifully back almost 100 years ago...it wasn't hugely commercial, it was mainly used for background music on tv and radio production, but it WAS an electronic synthesizer manufactured decades before the 60's, and the Novachord deserves respect

[@snoolee7950]

yes this presentation is bs. more self-promotion marketing from moog music corporation.

[@1918SMLE]

@@snoolee7950 How is it self promotion when it is acknowledged in this video as the predecessor to the analog synthesizer? Wouldn't it be more self-promoting to not reference this at all and pretend there was nothing before 1964 voltage controlled breakthrough?

[@snoolee7950]

@@1918SMLE Why the double speak? This video is shaman bullshit complete with the big parlor curtain. Do yourself a favor and look up the story of Messmer. It is pure deceit marketing with the shovel loads of hipster status signaling. Whoever made this scripted video knows zero about synth invention timeline. This video is dishonest crap, a real shit-pie.

[@HazeAnderson]

@@1918SMLE Correct. It appears our disinformation agent has been backed into a corner and is now flailing about in a desperate attempt to maintain credibility ... OH! there goes Snoo Lee's credibility .... now we ask ... why did they have to gain from all this? I won't wait for an answer time for the next part of this series .... that is more important than what Snoo Lee thinks (or is being PAID to say).

[@snoolee7950]

@@HazeAnderson paid in cactus needles you nitwit

[@fundorgon]

This is incredible thank you for expanding my knowledge and love of music. Peace brother

[@paulj0557tonehead]

I know where you were going with that. Actually in the early 70's the 12 oscillator system of a divider tone generator, or an individual oscillator ( 1 note per oscillator, or 2 per 12au7 or similar tube) was phased out and replaced by a 'master oscillator' system. Instead of 12 oscillators divided or single oscillators ( indv. osc.), the master oscillator used just one synthesized tone referred to as Top Order Synthesis. This was divided down. Tone quality depended on filtering. 1 screw tuning

[@horowizard]

I understand that the mechanical vibrato mechanism was actually able to impart a different vibrato for each note making for some very rich and complex sounding tones.

[@MouseFloof]

There's six little metal tabs, happily wiggling in a magnetic field. They operate on pairs; so that two notes next to each other will not have the same, fake-sounding, static vibrato. :)

[@aiken000]

What about the teleharmonium?

[@Meteotrance]

The Novachord was way ahead of he's time, like the Ondioline he used valve technologie inside XD but it's polyphonic XD !!!

[@Meteotrance]

@Richard Whole you mean Leon theremin invented a polyphonic one or you talking about the trauntonium use by oskar sala ?

[@annother3350]

4:31 He's not going to let us hear it is he?!

[@platypus8135]

Do you think Korg had the Novachord in mind when they developed the Korg PS3100/3200/3300 synthesizers? Just wondered because they used the same 12 osc - devided down principle (of course without tubes) to get a full 48 note polyphony. And the 3100 and 3300 has 3 resonators, too. The Korg PS synthesizers are the only other synths I know of using that octave down technology. And what is that machine standing in the background?

[@SarahRWilson]

cyclo tron divide down was also used by many organ manufacturers from Wurlitzer to Lowrey to even Hammond. An instrument I owned about thirty years ago, was a tube Wurlitzer. It had the twelve master oscillators and its dividing circuitry had special tubes, like 12AX7, but two plates per triode. In the solid state era, the top octave came from a color TV crystal (≈3.58MHz) divided down to the appropriate pitches in a chip. The rest of the divides were easily done with digital circuitry. After that, filtering and ADSR are as basic as any other synth. That's the architecture that ARP used for their poly synth functions. Off the beaten subject, the item in the background is an Altec/Western Electric 250 broadcast console.

[@tervaaku]

didn't Oskar Sala's formant filters for the mixtur trsutoniem come before this?

[@moogfoundation]

+What a Strange noise Oskar's wonderful reinterpretation of Friedrich Trautwein's Trautonium came about a decade after this.

[@pocojoyo]

the octave is divided in 12 semitones.

[@johnkelley5714]

12 notes within EACH octave on the piano. White notes AND black notes.

[@diamondparadigm]

what is this synth to his left?

[@MouseFloof]

I think that's a mellotron

[@yobhsiFehT]

I *NEED* somebody to do a good Novachord plugin! =S NEED!

[@gen-amb]

And today Cherry Audio has added it to their VST virtual vintage synth showroom

[@Mocuischalom]

Divid Down Technologie : but why 12 oscillator and not 7 oscillators for 7 octave of piano ?

[@duncangrant4580]

It is 12 oscillators and not 7 because there are 12 notes in total in one octave (7 full tones and 5 semitones) - for 7 octaves, each oscillator would then require 6 dividers in order to generate the same note for the 6 octaves below the top octave. So, for a 7octave instrument, you would need 12 oscillators (to generate the notes for the top octave) and a total of 72 dividers for all the remaining notes.

[@wilfredhosteland9362]

There ar no person naned Charles Williams connected to the Hammond Novachord! That's a myth. John Hanert was not very much involved,- it was primarly Laurens Hammond himself, and all the patent is credited him. I have worked on the Hammond story (and other electronic organ histories) since 1960, and have visited Hammond 3 times, and know very much about the factory- and product history from the inside. Charles Williams is an unknown name in connection with Hammond and the Novachord! It is very sorry that so many persons are writing so much wrong about that theme (and others) on the internet.

[@monikawojdak3037]

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@snoolee7950]

What a blight. Look at this guy embarrassing his parents. You should get a commercial actor gig selling dishwashing soap or coffee. It would probably pay more. Seems to be the objective.

[@HazeAnderson]

Oh no! xD He's a ROCKER!! Lock up yer daughters!! xD

[@gonzoengineering4894]

You OK pal?